I got a free Lexicon Vortex because two of the three encoders were on the fritz. After ignoring the warning that the encoders were unobtanium, and finding that to actually be the case, I came up with my own solution to the problem:

I haven't done a complete put-it-all-back-together test, but I expect to in the next few days. I wanted to stick my toe into the water and see if there would be any interest in the community at large for a solution to this problem without being able to buy the actual encoders.

the TLDR version is that I have a standard hex encoded switch/encoder, driving a PIC, driving transistors to emulate the original switch.

If there's enough interest, I'm interested in possibly making PCBs.... If not enough interest to be worth all that, but someone still needs help I'll be happy to share my stripboard layout and code. Testing the waters first though...

And no, I'm not going to post to Muff's until I've actually put it all back together and confirmed it, so this is sort of "pre-release" cos I know this community is not nearly so overwhelming .

Here's the source, this is currently coded for a PIC16F88 which is just what I happened to have on hand. I want to try recode for a PIC12F615 (got a bunch of these to use as noise generators using the Electric Druid code) and hopefully also work on using low-power mode so I'm not constantly sucking current just to do a wait loop.

I made an account just to bump this thread and throw my severe attention into. This has been happening to Vortexes since not long after they were discontinued and its a tragedy to lose these things, both personally and in weird audio mangling history. I have kept mine tucked away and periodically checked on whether there was anyone who loved it enough to invest in 1000 Digikey encoders and slowly get a piece of it back on Ebay. I never found anything new until now. I read your thread on G+ and saw your newer schematic and well, I just want to say I would gladly pay you for your labor/product to get mine back to life and I really think many, many others out there would if they were aware. I think we just resign ourselves to it being lost but still can't trash it. I'm still desperate though and I need my vortex now more than ever. I can solder a thing or two but I don't think I could build this from scratch.

Let's just say that I would buy an old PC to control it with RS232 serial port and a DOS program if that would do the job. Vortex forever.

So my backlog is starting to lighten and I'm coming back around to this project....

Looking at the space available, I really want to do this particular one in SMT (except for the encoder itself, of course). But that leaves me with the question of how do I make it so that the PIC can be programmed.... The whole point of SMT in this instance would be low profile. Normally for programming I see headers which are *not* low profile...

Kicking it around in my head, it seems perhaps the best route would be to have a header in the same vicinity as the encoder, which would give me "cover" for the height of the header, but I'm curious if anyone has any other suggestions....

Ok, I have a potential SMT layout. I'll need to order some prototypes and do some assembly to ensure it works/is workable (fits in the space available etc), and that could be a few weeks yet (as in 4 - 12 weeks).

In the mean time though, some market research questions:

1) would you buy a bare PCB and source your own BOM, knowing that you'd be doing assembly of SMT parts (SOT-23 and 0805)? And you'd have to have a PIC programmer of some sort; I included a header for the PICKit 3.

2) Would you buy a PCB with the SMT parts pre-populated, but source your own through hole parts (3 headers, 2 sockets, and a hex encoder; the encoder is the most expensive single part)?

3) Would you buy a kit? SMT assembly yourself, or just a kit with the SMT done and the other parts?

4) Would you buy a pre-made item that you would still have to wire into your Vortex?

5) What would you consider to be a reasonable price for such a thing? I have a rough target price in mind, based on parts costs, and my labor to do all the assembly. If this were to get bigger than a few dozen units I'd probably have the SMT stuff done at the fab, no idea how that would affect price.

I'm just looking for ballparks to see if I'm going to offer something at a price that works for me only to find nobody values it that much...

1 Beyond my capabilities, would have to find a tech
2 Yes
3 If SMT were pre-soldered
4 Yes
5 Hard to say. right now I don't know if I could justify it for more than $75-85 but that's just because of my personal situation and respect if your work on this demands more for it to be worthwhile.

Feels like I'm going back in time here, but I'm betting the Looper's Delight mailing list might still be a good place to pick up interest. If someone had pulled this off 5-10 years ago I think there would be little question about it selling well, there's just been time for some people to give up on it.

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